The strongest earthquake to hit Athens in nearly a century toppled buildings, trapped dozens and sent thousands running into the streets yesterday- killing at least 36 and leaving nearly 100 missing.

Hundreds were hurt by falling glass, concrete and marble slabs shaken loose by the killer quake, which lasted 10 seconds and had a magnitude of 5.9 on the Richter scale.

“It felt like a big bomb explosion. Paintings fell off the wall, the refrigerator toppled and the TV hit my wife,” said resident Kyriakos Maniatis.

Dimitris Lalas, head of the Athens Seismological Institute, said that “everyone panicked, especially because of the recent Turkish quake.”

More than 100 buildings collapsed – from multistory apartment houses to factories. Hundreds of others were left with cracks or crumbling facades.

But the city’s famed archeological sites, including the Acropolis and the towering columns of the Temple of Zeus, escaped damage.

State television reported at least 32 people were killed, including three children playing at their nursery. Most of the victims were crushed to death, but a few suffered fatal heart attacks.

The Athens Seismological Institute said the quake had a magnitude of 5.9 and was centered about 12 miles north of Athens.

The damage and deaths were concentrated in working-class and immigrant areas north of the city.

State media said about two dozen people were trapped in flattened apartment buildings.

An estimated 40 workers were missing in a collapsed foam-products factory north of Athens, and about a dozen employees were reported under the rubble of an appliance maker.

Rescue teams and stunned residents used everything from cranes to garden tools to dig for survivors – scenes sadly reminiscent of last month’s monster quake in neighboring Turkey.

When the Athens quake struck, workers bolted from their offices and retirees poured into the streets in their slippers.

A series of aftershocks – as strong as 4.5 – swayed buildings and kept people from going back indoors even as night fell.

Civil-defense officials erected tents and provided aid to people refusing to return home.

“Everything in the house fell down. I am going to stay outside for at least 24 hours,” said Stavroula Sigala, an elderly grandmother.

The strongest quake in the Athens area this century was a magnitude 6 in 1914, said Vasilis Papzahos, one of the leading earthquake experts in the region.

Years of progressively stricter building codes in Greece allowed Athens to ride out the quake with much less damage than western Turkey, where shoddy construction was blamed for near-total destruction in some places after the 7.4-magnitude quake on Aug. 17.